All his life Luke had been the troublemaker. He started shit, caused chaos, and generally created problems if there were any that needing causing. Sam was the reasonable one who tried to smooth things over. That’s why the pot always threatened to boil over when he was with Charlie and circumstances found them without his brother. She knew exactly how to press his buttons. Like when she’d worn his work shirt downstairs after the whole goat incident. She hadn’t even said anything and it fucking sent him.

If she gave him an inch, he’d pull all twelve feet out of the measuring tape.

“I apologize, darling,” he drawled, unable to keep his finger out of the wound. “I won’t call you that again.” Admitting that it’d just come out and he couldn’t help it seemed like the worse option somehow. But Luke liked that it got her fired up. He liked it a lot. It was a hell of a lot better than watching her ghost move around the dusty house. The real Charlie was in there somewhere still, and he was going to find her.

Letters.

Anger flashed across his features. She’d seen the stupid envelopes. Of course. He braced his hands on the island and used the edge to help him get up. The lightheaded feeling still lingered, covering the part of his brain that told him to leave it. He’d scared her and she was hurt, so she was pushing back. A calm, reasonable man would’ve explained what the letters were – and also explained why he couldn’t give them to her.

He grabbed his bag, put it on the counter, and pulled at the zippers and straps with rough fingers. German cigarettes and Syrian banknotes fell out while he rummaged for a piece of paper addressed to Montana. When Luke found the right envelope, he fought the urge to crumple it and stuff it into the garbage disposal, but the part of him that suddenly needed her to know what was in it – that part won. And it shouldn’t have.

“It’s for you,” he said with a fake cheer, almost as if it were a birthday present. “I wrote it. I write them every time I leave, in case I don’t come back. And because – ” Oh, he was on it now. He dared her to stop him. He absolutely, truly dared her. “ – you were one talented surgeon away from getting this two months ago, you deserve to know what’s in it.”

Luke’s eyes held hers as he stuffed an index finger under the flap and ripped it open. It was two pieces of a notebook paper with his tight, blocky handwriting. A picture was with it. Lake Michigan, three years ago. He had on sunglasses and no shirt, his arm around her shoulder while she laughed and tried to push him away. Luke remembered calling Sam, saying that his leave was just approved, and his brother said that they were actually getting ready for vacation – to book a ticket, to come out and meet them. All that fishing they tried to do and caught nothing. Beers and sunburns on a boat. Surely there wasn’t a weekend in any other August where he’d laughed more.

The corner of the picture had a rusty line, from when he kept it paperclipped to the bunk springs above him, with the other photos from the things he liked about Montana. He’d taken that one out to put it in the letter because over the last year, it made this hard burning feeling grow in his chest when he looked at it before he tried to sleep.

He gave Charlie the picture and started to read.

“Dear Charlie,

I’m sixty kilometers from Aleppo, and if it gets any hotter, you’ll be getting this letter sooner rather than later because I’ll have died of heat stroke. However it happened, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you were right about how I wasn’t going to come back. I feel more at home out here than I ever have in the States, and I know that hurt you. I will always be sorry for that.

But it’s going to be okay because you have that home. The place you’re building with Sam is beautiful, and you’re going to have everything you ever wanted. You’re going to raise those kids right. They’re going to be smart, empathetic, and independent. I won’t be there to teach them the quietest way to sneak back into the house after curfew, but just so you know, it’s through the basement window.

When you say things out loud, or you write them down, it makes your feelings true. I’ve never told you certain things because it’s not my place. But I don’t really want to be dead without you knowing that you’re not making it up. You know what I’m talking about. When you stare out at the trees with that burning feeling, wondering if you’re a horrible person for wanting someone else. I know because I feel it too, all the time, even when I’m way out here. I fell in love with you years ago. I couldn’t tell you when or why. It just happened.

You can’t control who you love, but you can control what you do about it. I never would have said or done anything. Not on my fucking life. I respect you and Sam too much to threaten what you have together. He can give you everything you want. Please, just let him.

Do me a favor and always remember to take care of the broken things. The damaged, lost, and forgotten things. You were always so good at that, like you were with me.

Love,
Luke”

He neatly folded the letter back up and handed it her. Someone must’ve had taken the air from the room because Luke felt like he was thousands of feet in the sky with no foundation. He never meant to turn the screws, to make her feel bad. That wasn’t why he read everything aloud. It was because if this was going to work, she needed to know where he was at. She needed to trust him.

His words were soft when he finally said something that wasn’t already written down. “I can’t move time backwards or forwards. I don’t know if I can go overseas again, if I’ll pass the physical. Even if I passed, I don’t know if I could leave. All this.”

If I could leave you.

Heat flared into Charlie’s face as Luke snapped at her, eyes narrowing. Neither of them were truly in the right place to have this conversation but it seemed like it was going to happen anyway. “You don’t seem very sorry,” she bit back accusatorially, shifting her weight to her hip. “Matter of fact, I don’t think you’ve been sorry for half of the shit you should be.” She could remember how raw his voice had been when he’d allow the endearment to escape and it was the exact opposite of the way he’d now used term of affection now.

Why did they always fight? She could barely control her emotions as it was, oscillating from depression and anxiety to sheer panic and fear and immediately into anger over the span of just a few minutes. Charlie chewed on the inside of her cheek as she watched Luke get up and all but stalk to his bag, wincing slightly at his pointed movements.

Obviously it was for her. It had her fucking name on it. And separate envelopes? Surely there weren’t many things he couldn’t have said to both of them… Her eyes widened when he started speaking again, as if realizing that the contents were probably things that should have never been said. “Luke, I didn’t mean to pr—“ He charged through her words, flipping the picture towards her.

A mixture of sunscreen, lake water, and sweat laid on every bare inch of Charlie, a layer that she would need to scrub away at for the next two days. “Don’t touch me, I’m disgusting,” she told Sam as he approached her, coaxing her ponytail through the baseball cap he’d given her.

“That’s never stopped me before,” he replied, his eyes flashing with laughter. “I’m going to get another beer, do you want one?”

Her nose scrunched. “A White Claw?”

“Same thing,” Sam replied with a wave of his hand, giving her a quick kiss before sauntering towards the area they’d set up with beach towels, an umbrella, and coolers. “Luke?”

She turned to the other man, a late minute addition to the trip but not an unwelcome one. Her gaze drifted over him, lingering on places she absolutely shouldn’t have when her husband was walking away. Had he heard Sam? Charlie walked towards the older brother, tilting her head in question. “Beer?”

Luke’s arm came to her shoulders, pulling her towards him and crushing her. “Get off me. You feel like you rolled around in lake algae,” she said with a laugh as she tried to push him away, knowing that if she’d touched Sam he would have felt the same way. “I just wanted to see if you wanted another drink. Well, he did but —“ When she looked up, she saw her husband with a phone in his hand and aimed at them.

“Memories, you know?” He said with a shrug. She didn’t notice how his shoulders slumped or the way his smile didn’t reach his eyes anymore.

Sam had always been sentimental, hell-bent on capturing even small pieces of their lives whenever he could. It was heightened with Luke, given that every time he went on tour there was no guarantee he’d be seen again. Charlie knew Sam had some regrets about not being with his parents for the last few years of their lives, so she tried not to complain about the sheer volume of stored pictures on his phone. She’d never seen this one, though. Sam must have given it to Luke, evidently without her knowledge. Her eyes softened as her fingers drifted over their faces as the letter was read.

I fell in love with you years ago. No. Nonono. She couldn’t look up, her eyes frozen on the photo she still held. You were always so good at that, like you were with me.

In what fucking world was he doing this now? She’d just lost her husband - his brother, for Christ’s sake - and now he was trying to hand her the letter that would have destroyed her if she’d opened the mailbox to find it.

Tell him that you need him. Say that you think about it too. Beg him to stay.

“Don’t do this to me.” Charlie tried to wet her lips, as if that would make the words come easily. Finally, she looked up and held out the picture. “He didn’t tell me he had this printed, or that he gave it to you.” He knew. He always fucking knew. Besides that, she couldn’t count how many times she’d wanted the courage to come clean with Luke; to clear the air and hopefully the tension, but after that night she’d charged out looking for the goat, she knew speaking it out loud would worsen whatever it was. “Don’t tell me you love me when he’s barely cold in the ground. Don’t come in here and tell me we aren’t horrible people for betraying him.”

Don’t tell me you love me.

Her gaze lingered on the top of the scar he’d exposed earlier, peeking just outside the confines of his shirt. “Is that why you kept going back? Because you couldn’t stand to be around me?” Maybe if he hadn’t been touring, he would have been here. He could have saved Sam, because she sure has fuck hadn’t. Charlie's wedding band seemed to burn on her finger as she met Luke's eyes. “You always said you hated the idea of being tied down here... and now is that what you're asking to do? To stay with me?"

For all his vices, Luke didn’t particularly care about gambling, but he would’ve bet money on Charlie’s reaction. Let me put a thousand on ‘she already knows’ and ‘she makes it about Sam.’ He put his dish in the sink and washed it so he’d have something to do besides look at her frozen expression. He even dried it and put it in the cabinet. When he had nothing left to touch or move, he got his cigarettes out of his pocket and put a dry one in his mouth. “You fucking asked about the letter so now you fucking know,” he said in a flat, matter-of-fact tone. There’s a sixty percent chance of rain in the valley today, folks. Stay in the right lane to merge onto I-90 West. Please do not stand up while the ride is in operation.

Luke pulled back the sliding door and Jake bounded out of the kitchen, down the stairs, and towards the path that led to the barn. He usually took ten minutes to tire himself out before slinking back to the house, whining for a treat or a game of fetch. The sun was just starting to set, and there was a warm late-summer breeze he wanted to let into the house. The air pressure in the room currently could make an astronaut pass out.

“It’s the truth. Call it betrayal if you want. Whatever you’ve got to tell yourself, Charlie. Because if that’s the case, I’ve been betraying him for years. Him being dead or alive doesn’t change how I feel.” He’d somehow crushed the cigarette with all his fidgeting and hand gestures while he talked. He threw it out and got another one. “Him being dead or alive,” he repeated, “doesn’t change the fact that I’m not going to cross that line. Maybe I want something I know I’ll never have, but I’m not a fucking asshole. Telling you something you already know and acting on it are two completely different things.”

He dug a finger into his chest – the good side, the right one – and stepped into Charlie’s space, eyeing her like he was a wolf in a cage who should not, under any circumstances, be let out. “Leaving this place always hurt me. I left because it was my damn job. You guys had this, the farm, the dream, everything. Why would I stay in this town when I felt like a stranger in it for my entire life? Why? Why, when my unit needed and wanted me?” Luke caught himself raising his voice and lowered it, knowing that his volume wasn’t going to make her hear him any more or less clearly. “It wasn’t because I couldn’t stand being around you. It was because I could stand being around you a little too much.”

Before he crushed it again, he put the cigarette behind his ear and walked around her, back to the sliding door. He could hear the jingle of Jake’s collar tags off in the distance.

“I want to stay if you want me to stay. I know this farm, this place. We can make it run. We can make it work for us. It’s going to take time, months – fucking years. We commit, or we sell it. I’ve stood still for thirty years. I’m done now.”

He stepped onto the porch, lit his smoke, and whistled for the dog.

That kitchen was going to be the death of him.

The resignation in Luke’s voice caused Charlie’s mouth to drop open slightly. She had fucking asked, but she hadn’t thought the contents would have been so volatile. She’d always known there was something between them and, whatever it was, it was not fleeting. Years. Her mouth went dry at the thought, looking down at the picture again. Then? When? “How the fuck would I have known that?” she asked, eyes trailing upward as he approached her.

Her jaw was set as he kept talking, teeth grinding as she fought from interrupting him and eyes narrowing as his voice filled the kitchen. Then, suddenly, it felt like she could barely hear his next words. Had she been a reason he’d always left? Did she have a part to play when he gained another scar or the pain she’d just witnessed? Charlie nearly flinched as Luke moved away from her, leaving her there in a daze as she tried to process what exactly was happening.

Did she want him to stay? She knew she didn’t want to be alone anymore, in a house where the ghost of her husband haunted every square foot. That wasn’t quite the same thing.

Maybe I want something I know I’ll never have.

Charlie’s hands braced against the island, steadying herself as she tried to formulate any response. Once Luke removed himself from close quarters, she felt like she could breathe again… but that wasn’t anything new. Always there when she didn’t want him there, never there when she wanted nothing but him; he always took up space, but she’d never been so aware of it prior to Sam’s death. Now, coupled with that fucking admission, it felt suffocating.

We can make it work for us. Months, years… Why would he want to stay now, when he had a very clear line of reasons why that had never been a good idea before?

She took a deep breath and pushed herself away from the counter, quietly padding after Luke’s steps and finding herself in the cooling air. Charlie couldn’t bring herself to do anything other than grab the lit cigarette from the soldier. “These things will kill you, you know,” she said before bringing the stick to her mouth and taking a deep inhale, holding it in as she handed it back to him.

Coughs racked her body followed by self-depreciating laughter. “I can’t give it up, even if I can't do it on my own.” Sam wouldn’t want her to run away just because he wasn’t here, would he? He always talked about how strong she was, but if she was then this wouldn’t be an issue. She'd be able to do it by herself. Charlie hoped that Sam couldn’t see them down here, couldn’t listen in on the conversation that had just happened or anything that would happen from here on out.

“You know, you were never the only one betraying him,” she said softly, looking up at the man she stood beside.

Him being dead or alive doesn’t change the fact that I’m not going to cross that line.

She let her head rest against his shoulder, keeping her eyes on the land in front of them. The barn, the animals, the legacy her husband at unwittingly left her… she couldn’t do it on her own. “I need you.” The words slipped from her before she had time to think, but they’d been quiet enough that she could trick herself into thinking he hadn’t heard her. Charlie cleared her throat, the residual taste of tobacco so cloying she could barely stand it.

“Stay with me. Please. We can make it run.”

Luke was back home for a few months, and Sam had convinced him to book a flight to Nashville to meet his girlfriend. “I’m going to convince her to move up here. I know it. You have to see who I’m talking about. You’ll love her.” And talk about her he certainly did, almost endlessly, even when Luke was deployed and he had few precious moments to video chat him. Charlie and the farm. The farm and Charlie. That’s it. Admittedly, Luke did want to meet her, to see what in the hell got Sam like this. He’d had girlfriends in the past, but none of them had made him overturn his hard-nosed, work-centric attitude like Charlie.

Of course, Sam picked the worst place on Earth to meet a new person. The downtown honky tonk bar was loud, sticky, and horribly crowded. Live music and bachelorette parties in matching t-shirts filled every corner. He couldn’t turn around with hitting someone’s shoulder or accidentally pressing against a stranger’s sweaty arm. His phone dinged with a text from Sam. ‘Grab me a beer and meet me at one of the window seats. I’m going to find Charlie. She’s here somewhere.’ Easier said than done. Luke didn’t have tits, so getting his hands on two Miller Lites was like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that wasn’t there.

“Fifteen dollars,” the bartender said.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Seven-fifty each. Price goes up the more I dislike you.”

Luke gave him a twenty, grabbed the beers, and was too busy being pissed to watch where he was going. He absolutely shoulder-checked the girl behind him and drove two fistfuls of bottles into her chest. Foam went everywhere, and he drenched both himself and his unwitting subject. “Jesus Christ – ” he cussed at the same exact time she gasped, “Fucking God!”

He shoved the bottles onto the bar and grabbed her shoulders. “Holy shit, I’m so sorry, are you okay – ”

She wrenched away from him. “Get your fucking hands off me!”

“I’m sorry! Relax! You were up my ass! How was I supposed to see you?”

“Well you took twenty years to order,” she snapped. “I didn’t think you’d move so fast all of a sudden.”

Luke glared at her, and the greenest eyes he’d ever seen glared at him right back. She was gorgeous. And a bitch, apparently. “Listen. I’m sorry. Really, truly sorry, okay? I’ll buy your drinks. I’m meeting my brother, and I didn’t know this place was a money laundering racket.”

Surprising him, she laughed. “Yeah, I hate it here too. I’m meeting someone also – my boyfriend’s brother – and I’m not exactly calm about it.”

Luke looked at her again. Hard. Those eyes, her dark hair, her bright smile. The pictures Sam had shown him. Meeting someone in person was different, especially when she was wearing a beer and yelling at him. “Charlie,” he said softly, finally putting it all together. “You’re Charlie.”

It had always been this push and pull. They’d vibrate, like two similar ends of a magnet forced together, until one of them turned and they snapped into place.

“You never said or did anything. That’s not betrayal, Charlie. At least, I don’t think it is.”

Doing it would be the awful part. It was a dark forest path they both separately agreed to never acknowledge. No good would come from it. A selfish piece of him yearned to know what her version of this betrayal was. Every thought and fantasy. However, her head gently resting at his shoulder told him that it didn’t matter. Right now mattered. That was most important.

Luke leaned against the railing, smoking until Charlie took the cigarette from his fingers. He watched her carefully, knowing she was either going to tell him to kick shit or ask him to stay. She couldn’t keep riding the line like this – she needed to pick one.

And for him – for right now – she picked the exact thing he wanted to hear.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Luke said, voice barely audible as the words lingered in his throat. “I’m staying.”

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, took back the cigarette with his free hand, and snuffed it out on the wooden railing. Sam always went batshit when he did that. The rain would take care of it.

“You remember when we first met? When I decked you at the bar and got beer everywhere?” He left out the part about wanting to put her over his shoulder and walk her out the front door. “Sam made you seem larger than life. Sweet, kind, compassionate. He sung your praises to hell and back. And when I actually met you and you were pissed at me, I couldn’t put those two people together at first. We all have multiple sides. Different versions, you know?”

Luke wasn’t sure where he was going with all this as he watched Jake weave back up the barn bath. The shepherd sniffed out his tennis ball, brought it up the steps, and put it at Charlie’s feet before nudging at her knee with his nose.

“We bring out different sides in each other. Good ones. And we can use them to make this place everything that it can be.”

As the sun set over the edge of the barn’s roof, a horrible aching feeling at the back of his throat radiated in his chest. His little brother, the one who’d always worked so hard to knock his moral compass into place, was gone. A cold headstone was all that was left of him, just down the hill. And yet somehow, he was still all around them.

“I fucking miss him, Charlie,” Luke whispered, hoping to hell she couldn’t hear the cracks in his voice. “I miss him so much.”

Luke was wrong. It was a betrayal of the highest degree, even if they hadn’t acknowledged it or acted on it. At the end of the day, Charlie had acknowledged it when she’d purposely slept in his shirt after the goat incident, the way she looked at him a little too long, or how she accompanied him into town for no good goddamn reason. She had talked about it with Milly, as if that would clear her conscience. She had acted on it when she whispered Luke’s name in a daze as she slid her fingers down Sam’s lower stomach and when her hand drifted down her own hips, moving as she thought not about her husband, but her husband’s brother.

Charlie leaned into Luke as he reciprocated her bid for closeness, telling herself that it had been the lack of physical contact over the last few weeks that had driven her to touch him. Her eyes followed Jake as he rolled in the grass, sniffed around, and then eagerly made his way back to her. His wet nose was forced into her hand, causing her to rub his nose and then settle into the familiar motion of rubbing his ears. She’d never forget meeting Luke. It was as if she could suddenly feel the stickiness of the beer that had splashed on her, the anger that had risen in her instantly as she’d all but verbally assaulted the man. The way her anger had immediately fizzled as she remembered she was there with Sam, with his sweet smile and kind eyes, and —

Charlie couldn’t agree that Luke brought out a good side of her. Perhaps a more playful one, but one that was willing to fight and argue, tooth and nail, at any given point. But he was staying, in a town that he hated and had only tried to escape from, for her. Because he loved her.

“I know,” she said, the arm closest to him moving around his back, fingers bunching the fabric of his shirt slightly. “I’m so sorry.” Sorry that he hadn’t had the privilege of spending as much time with Sam as she had. Sorry for letting Sam die.

After Matthew and the rest of his family were gone, Sam had taken every opportunity to bring Luke back to the farm, including him in everything he possibly could, but the small respites of leave that Luke got from the military were never enough for Sam. He’d wanted him to discharge, to get a house in the valley or even build one somewhere on the hundreds of acres they had. “He loved you, you know? Missed you like crazy.” Charlie could hear the raw vulnerability in Luke’s voice, not wanting to drive the nail further into whatever he was feeling.

“We should probably get going, if you wanted to go see Anna before it gets too late.” The woman didn’t bother to make any movements, though; was it a betrayal that she didn’t want to lose the weight of his arm around her shoulders? “If you still want me to go. I don’t have to. I can stay here.” I can manage here without you. I have been. The intrusiveness of the thought almost sent her reeling. When had she become so avoidant and so needy at the same time?

He loved you, you know.

Luke knew, but he sometimes forgot, especially when they had disagreements or Sam was accusing him of fucking his wife. But he knew. He’d never forget.

At Charlie’s question, he let a large breath fill his chest. “No,” he exhaled. “Let’s go tomorrow. After the chores.” Maybe it was the jet lag, shooting himself in the chest with painkillers, or their two hours of emotional surgery, but Luke was exhausted. He couldn’t even remember the last time he felt rested. For now, he wanted to memorize the small feeling of hope he held, so when he lost track of the light at the end of the tunnel, he could call back on it. There was a future for him that didn’t involve guns in the desert – bombs, mines, death, and skeleton cities. It was still small and fleeting, but it existed.

Then they could take stock of everything that needed fixing and repairs before winter. Build up the pantry again, in case there was a storm. Assess the barn’s insulation. Fix the field truck…

“I’ll have coffee on at five.” He gave Charlie’s arm a squeeze and fought the urge to pull her in and press his lips to the top of her head, which he sometimes did before he left for a long time. Instead, he avoided any eye contact that would linger and brought his bag upstairs to the guest room.

“Guest room” wasn’t entirely accurate, because to Luke’s knowledge, he was the only one who’d stayed in it for the last few years. It was across the hall from the bathroom, past which was the master and what he knew what going to be a nursery. If he thought the kitchen felt haunted, he was wrong. Downstairs had nothing on the memories of the upper floor.

Luke changed the sheets, wiped dust off the bureau, and unpacked his bag. Fatigues went in the closet, shoes on the rack, clothes in the drawers. He plugged in his phone and put the miscellaneous items in the nightstand drawer. As chaotic as certain aspects of his life were, the military had taught him the importance of systems and organization. Everything had a place. It made up for how untethered he sometimes felt.

Over the last few weeks, he’d taught himself how to take off a t-shirt without aggravating his healing chest. He got his right arm out first, pulled the shirt over his head, and then gently worked it off his left arm. Many hospital bathroom mirrors had gotten him accustomed to his new Frankenstein aesthetic. The red scar at his neck went down to his first left rib, the focus of most the damage. It ended in mottled tissue and surgical scars. Most of the bruising and discoloration was gone, but at first glance, it was startling. Like something out of a horror movie. Not even his various torso tattoos could distract from it.

At some godforsaken early morning hour – well before five – Luke gave up on sleeping. Every house creak or noise outside festered in his brain. Usually, it was nightmares that kept him up, but now, it was his incessant trainwreck of thoughts that crashed into each other. He figured it was better than any of his reoccurring bullshit dreams, like the echoes of Sam’s shouts in the barn, or trying to find Charlie in the dark, following the sounds of her sobbing.

He pulled on his jeans from earlier, forewent the shirt because he didn’t want to deal with the misery of taking it on and off, and stepped as quietly as he could down the stairs. Luke felt around in the dark for the small light above the kitchen sink and got himself a glass of water. After smoking a cigarette outside in the dark, he sat at the kitchen island and put his head in his hands.

It was supposed to be me, he thought, closing his eyes. Why wasn’t it me? He sank down farther in his seat, until his forehead rested against his forearm.

Maybe the bed was the problem – because that’s where Luke fell asleep.

Sleep had been a stranger since Sam died. Charlie had refused the Ambien and alprazolam that her primary care doctor had tried to give her. Every now and then she’d take something over the counter, melatonin or Benadryl, but she couldn’t while Luke was in the house… or anyone, for that matter.

Although that was very likely the time she needed to do exactly that. It seemed like she woke up every 15 minutes, fighting the urge to walk around the property to make sure Luke hadn’t went out on his own like Sam had. Jake’s ears would perk each time, though he remained at the foot of the bed. Charlie attempted to take some comfort in that.

So it wasn’t a surprise when she felt Jake move slightly or hear the guest bedroom door creak early in the morning. Charlie tossed and turned for a few more minutes, not eager to get out of bed and face whatever shitshow of a day that she and Luke made it. It had been easy to forget how explosive they could be. She’d thought that maybe Sam’s death would have mellowed their interactions but it seemed to have just made them more tense.

I fell in love with you years ago.

She hated the way her stomach dropped when he’d said it. Like she’d been waiting for eons to hear the declaration, only to immediately try and worm her way out of the implications with self-righteousness. Maybe she shouldn’t have told him to stay here. She should have told him to go, start a real life and have a family with not his brother’s wife.

But she hadn’t. And she wouldn’t. Charlie sighed, staring up at the ceiling before finally leaving her bed. She grabbed her phone, clock showing 05:32, and ushered Jake out of the room. He barreled down the stairs and she followed, albeit slowly, until she came to the kitchen. She didn’t smell coffee and immediately panicked, hoping Luke hadn’t gone and started working on the farm already.

But there he was, asleep sitting upright. Shirtless.

A year ago, she would have ogled. Hell, even six months ago. Now, when her eyes moved over him, she tried to convince herself it was for no other reason than to make sure he didn’t have any injuries.

A small smile graced her lips as she moved around the kitchen, beginning to make the coffee she had been promised. She opened the door to the porch, letting in cold air and allowing Jake to run around for the first time of many that day. “Luke?” She tried to keep her voice soft as she approached him, careful not to be behind him or to reach out.

She’d done research a few years ago into the PTSD and maladjustment that soldiers experienced when reintegrating into society. She remembered not to make sudden movements, never come behind them, and stories of how many of them, upon waking from sleep, would act on their training without thought.

“Luke.” Charlie opened a cabinet, grabbing two mugs as gently as possible and filling them up with coffee. Her fingers reached out, skimming the tattooed skin of his arm. “You can go back to sleep, you know.”

When Luke first woke in the hospital, his panic was so aggressive that several nurses had to come and hold him down so he wouldn’t make his injuries worse. In the last few weeks, his sleep patterns were terrible enough that he wasn’t able to tell the difference between his subconscious and reality – everything was just a fog until he mentally committed to being awake.

This time, when Charlie woke him, he slowly sat up and blinked at her, as if he were imagining things. The breeze, the coffee, her smell –

“Shit,” he breathed. “I thought you were in my head for a second.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and blinked some more. If she only knew how much of his sleep real estate she took up. Most of it was stress, like he could hear her and couldn’t see her. But not all of it.

Luke took one of the mugs of coffee and swallowed a scorching sip. He liked his first cup to be an almost undrinkable temperature. It did a better job of jolting him awake than the caffeine. Looking at Charlie in the kitchen made his brow crinkle slightly in amusement. “And let you have all the glory of slopping the pigs and shoveling chicken shit?” He grinned and put his mug on the counter before headed up the stairs to get dressed. “Not in this lifetime,” he said from the staircase. He didn’t address his makeshift bedroom, figuring he’d get a box fan while he was in town. Maybe that would help.

When he came back down, he smelled like aftershave and toothpaste. He wore one of his several pairs of farm Carhartts (jeans were for the bar, Costco, and haircut appointments), a highlighter orange pocket t-shirt, and his ratty Bolton Feed trucker hat that was fraying at the brim.

Luke moving around the kitchen, dining room, and mudroom to gather all the things he’d somehow managed to scatter literally everywhere in his twelve hours back was kind of like watching a kid get ready for school. Nothing was in the right place, and sometimes he looked for something, forgot, and went back. He stuffed a granola bar in his mouth and another in his pocket, for when he’d inevitably be starving again in ten minutes. His sunglasses were on top of the fridge, not on the island like he thought. The box of toothpicks he kept by the landline were still there, and he chewed on the end of one while he put on his boots.

He fired several questions at Charlie while he got ready. When was the last time she’d gotten eggs from the coop? They could put them in the truck and trade them at Bolton’s. Was Maggie, one of their two horses, still taking all those vitamins? Did she think it was going to rain later? What did she want for dinner?

Luke grabbed work truck keys off the hook on the wall and turned around at the last second. Eager eyes found her as he moved the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “You’re coming,” he asked, “right?”

Charlie finished her coffee opposite from Luke; slowly, savoring every moment she could get before tending to the jobs she did on the farm. So she sat in the mismatched t-shirt and pajama pants until Jake came panting back in and Luke left and returned in work clothes. She felt her teeth grind as she looked at him, fighting back the concern she so desperately wanted to express. Two days ago. Yes, Maggie still got the vitamins. Later in the evening. I don’t know. In a way, she appreciated the questions, because that meant he would be out of the house and taking care of things that she’d neglected over the past few weeks.

In another, it just reminded her how Sam hadn’t done any of that. They’d sat and had coffee, made him breakfast, and then he kissed her and whistled at Jake to follow. “Be careful,” was all she managed before taking another sip of coffee, stuck in place as she watched Luke leave.

Charlie loathed the way those Carhartts looked on him.

“Hm?”

Her brows furrowed slightly as she pulled her gaze upward. “Where are we going?” She’d planned to go upstairs and change, then meander to the barn to begin feeding the animals. The woman ran a hand through her dark hair before sighing. “Fuck it. Sure. Give me like… two minutes.”

So she quickly rinsed her mug and went upstairs, donning a ratty, gray T-shirt with ‘ARMY’ written across the chest along with a pair of jeans that were littered with paint stains. Pulling her hair up, she quickly descended the stairs and out the door.

Charlie hadn’t been in the truck since Sam had died. She kept her eyes down as she traversed to the grass in front of the porch. “You ready to slop the pigs and shovel the shit?” She asked, turning her eyes back to him with a bright smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I, uh… actually was in the barn yesterday trying to clean it up but didn’t get very far, if we could put it on the list. One of the lights went out and I need help moving some of Sam’s stuff. He had boxes of stuff out there for no fucking reason and…”

She moved towards the truck, trailing off. There wasn’t much to say; after all, they all knew how it had ended and why the godforsaken boxes were still there. Opening the door, the smell of Sam hit her square in the face. The smell of sweat after a long, hot day permeated the air, along with the general musty odor that came with an older car. “It always fucking stank in here,” she muttered, making a mental note to try and change that with car fresheners at some point.

Charlie’s eyes flickered to the sun visor above the driver’s seat, noting the deep indentation around the clip. She leaned over and flipped it down, looking at the two pictures that sat there. One of her looking over her shoulder, eyes narrowed as she was knee deep in hay and shit, and one of Sam and Luke working on the farm together. “Fuck me.”

Her jaw clenched for the second time in a half hour span and she closed to visor quickly. “I don’t have anything for dinner, and you have errands to run in town anyway. So let’s just get this done then we can go. I gotta get off this fucking land for one goddamn minute.”

Where were they going? The barn, the gates, the chicken coop, the pig pen. The store, the feed mart, the police station. What did she think they were going to do all day? Sit inside and play checkers? Fight and pretend like they didn’t want to rip each other’s clothes off? She killed him sometimes. He was doing this farm with her goddamnit, not around her. Caught somewhere between amused and annoyed, he put his sunglasses on top of the brim of his hat and topped off a travel mug with black coffee while she changed.

It was clear that Jake was used to routine, and without Sam doing chores first thing in the morning, the dog lingered by the door and looked up at Luke every so often. He’d go outside, then back in, huff at Luke, and whine. “Gotta wait for your mommy, bub,” Luke mumbled to the shepherd, scratching behind his ears. “We’re gonna work all day and sleep like bricks tonight, or I swear.”

The thing about Charlie was that she was a grown adult person. She likely owned thirty different t-shirts, sweatshirts, and other various things she could put on her body that weren’t his. Though he’d never told her because the words would’ve sounded ridiculous coming out of his mouth, she knew damn well how he felt about her wearing his things. He wanted to tell her to go upstairs and change, to quit making him think things that he shouldn’t – but he squeezed the back of his neck instead and said a somewhat tight “let’s go” on his way out the door.

There were three trucks in the drive. The used and abused work Chevy, Sam’s F150, and Luke’s Ram that he admittedly spent an embarrassing amount of time waxing and polishing whenever he was home. He could be weirdly detail-oriented with some things, like his truck, but others, like where he’d left his wallet, were an entirely different situation. He was pretty sure that if he put the Chevy on an actual road, it’d fall apart before it got to town.

It was scorching outside, even at dawn. The late August sun held a haze as it rose, and Luke was already sweating when he got in the Chevy. He cranked all the windows down and shooed Jack into the backseat. Every glass surface was covered in dog slobber, the seats were falling apart, and there was a small country’s worth of mud caked onto the floormats.

He stared at the pictures inside the visor when Charlie pulled it down. His heart jacknifed in his chest, and he wondered how many pieces of Sam that they were going to find throughout the day. He had a feeling that there were going to be many. Sam had always fostered a love for taking pictures. Like Luke, he knew how brief life could be sometimes. But, the pictures had to stay. Hiding them or getting rid of them was out of the question, at least for Luke. “I know,” was all he said, voice barely audible. “I know.”

Though twenty-five years old, the truck took the worn path to the barn like a champ. Luke reached over at one point and opened the glove box, his arm accidentally brushing Charlie’s knee as he rummaged around. “Here,” he said, giving her a pad of paper and a thick contractor’s pencil that’d been sharpened with a pocket knife. “We have to start writing down all this stuff we have to do. Two months until winter. Just doesn’t feel like it.”

If Charlie paid attention, she’d notice that Luke only lifted or moved things with his right arm. He used his left hand plenty, but he never raised it above his chest. With all the heat, the cows and horses were better left in the shade of the barn, but if they didn’t let the goats out – at least while they ran errands in town – they’d cause ruckus and hell. Jake was actually the best with them, and he herded them up the hill into their pen, where Luke filled their feed trays and water bottles. The chickens were his least favorite, simply because the amount he had to bury out in the second pasture because foxes had gotten to them was too many. However, they were stupid and cheap to take care of, and their eggs were incredibly useful. He put two dozen in some spare cartons and stuck them in an old Igloo cooler in the truck bed. They didn’t need to be cool – just preferably not boiled by the time they got to town.

All in all, feeding and checking on everything took about two hours. On a regular day, the rest belonged to maintenance and chores, and the more Luke looked around, the bigger the list in his head grew.

“Is nine in the morning too early for ice cream?” he asked Charlie as he parked the work truck next to his so they could switch vehicles. Already he smelled like sweat and could feel his shirt sticking to his chest. He angled his hat down over his eyes to help with the sun and took a long drink out of the gallon of water from the Igloo. He handed it to Charlie. “Or am I being a bitch?”

Charlie took what she was handed, grimacing as she wrapped her fingers around the pencil that looked like it was made for someone who had hands twice her size. She hadn’t noticed how close she’d gotten to Luke when she’d leaned over to look at the pictures but she absolutely noticed the contact to her knee. They were too comfortable together, but that wasn’t anything new. Why did it now seem so much more heavy? Was it just Sam’s death, or their admissions last night?

“I fucking hate the winters here,” she said softly, pulling her legs up onto the seat and towards her chest, wrapping her arms around them. Sam had ensured that they had a working fireplace the first year they’d been here, and he hadn’t touched another thing on the farm until he was sure they would be safe if the snow drifts or winds knocked out their power. Of course, there was a generator that came later, but there hadn’t been anything like curling up with him on the couch and listening to the wood burn.

She went about her usual tasks in the most mind-numbing way, attempting to pet the animals every now and then when she felt herself reminded of their present reality. Charlie didn’t talk much while they worked, though she did steal glances towards Luke as he moved around. Recalling the episode of pain he’d experienced last night, her worry grew. Was he going to be able to help? Would he be able to handle it if he was too limited to do what was needed?

But soon enough, the two piled back into the truck and moved back to the house. Sweat pooled in her hair, between her breasts, the small of her back… she needed a fucking shower. There was even a sheen over her arm as she reached out for the proffered water. A smirk appeared on her lips when Luke spoke. “Just being a bitch.” Her eyes lingered on his face for a moment too long before taking a swig. “You stink. You need to shower, and so do I.”

Her door popped open and she quickly moved, not willing to be in a confined space with Luke for more time than she needed to be. She didn’t bother waiting for him to tell her it was something he was willing to wait for and entered the house, immediately going upstairs. It was a quick shower but she could now feel confident she wouldn’t cause people to stay outside of a five foot radius from her.

She dabbed some concealer under her eyes, which ended up being a stark contrast to her still red cheeks, and slid on another Army shirt before parading downstairs. When she saw him again, Charlie crossed her arms. “Where do you want to go first? I imagine you want to see Anna first, get whatever ‘personal effects’ you have.” It didn’t go without a little roll of her eyes, but it was the first time since Sam died she had felt a little bit more normal.

Luke pulled at the collar of his shirt. He supposed he did stink. “I don’t need to – ” He started to protest, but he stopped when he realized he was just doing it to Charlie’s retreating back. He sighed and went back into the house, leaving the door open for Jake, who was lucky he was a dog and did not fall into the category of immediately needing to bathe.

While Charlie showered, he finished his second granola bar and made a list at the island of the errands they needed to do while they were in town. Food – all. Police station. Feed store. Chickens? Box fan. He stopped when he felt his stomach about to consume the rest of his body, so he got a stale piece of bread and put butter on it.

Water must’ve been Charlie’s power-up source because she was on something when she came back into the kitchen. Various different response options flooded Luke’s brain.

How many of my shirts do you have, hm? Look at me. How many?

There’s a recruitment office in Billings. You seem interested in joining.

So that’s the plan? You’re going to sit in my truck and wear my shirt while I ask another woman to dinner?

Take it off. Before I take it off for you.

He said none of these things. Instead, brown eyes moved to her chest, where “ARMY” sat in large letters, and then back up to her face. He walked up to her and reached for the hem of the tee. He gave it a small tug with a dirty hand. Mine. “Because you want me to go so bad,” he said darkly, “the police station is the first stop.”

Luke stepped away, stuffed the rest of the bread in his mouth, and went upstairs to shower. It was still humid from its recent usage, and he could smell which shampoo she’d used. Flirting with his dead brother’s wife six weeks after he’d died was going to send him to hell. Touching his dick while he knew she was downstairs thinking about what he’d said – also, straight to hell. He kept his hands away from his lower half while he went through all the shower bottles, squinting at them under the water. The differences between Sam’s and Charlie’s were obvious, but if memory served, there was still one that he’d bought near Christmas, sitting on the edge of the tub. He scrubbed himself with it in a hopeful attempt that it’d also clean the inside of his mouth so he wouldn’t say any more stupid shit to Charlie, at least for the rest of the day.

As a premise, Luke didn’t wear shorts unless he was planning on getting in a body of water or sleeping, so he came back downstairs in (clean) work pants and a dark gray shirt. Maybe it would be better at hiding his sweat stains. He cuffed the sleeves at his biceps, knowing it wouldn’t be nearly as cooling as the cut-off tanks he usually favored in the summer – but he didn’t need the entire town seeing his scars and asking him questions he didn’t want to answer.

He grabbed his hat off the counter and stuffed his wallet in his back pocket. “I like it when you wear my things,” he finally admitted. “It makes me – ” What? Fucking weird was what it made him. It was literally just a shirt. She probably had them laying around and wore them because it didn’t matter if they got dirty or not. Not because they were “his.” He needed to calm down. Luke looked at her. “I wasn’t trying to be an asshole. Wear what you want.”

She was a truly terrible person.

Charlie hadn’t expected to feel the same way about Luke after Sam had died. She’d expected to remain as heartbroken as possible, but as with every time they were together, he seemed to pull her out of that grief. Unless they were actively talking about Sam, it was like he hadn’t died at all. Like he was still here. So when the surviving brother looked over her and moved toward her, she felt her heart skip a beat.

Despicable person.

“Sorry for wanting you to get your shit done?” She met his eyes, holding contact until he did. “You still stink.” When he finally left, Charlie felt like she could breathe again. So, with that, she began to clean a little bit in the kitchen, wiping down the countertop for the first time in six weeks. Her mom had told her that she could hire a maid and have her sent out, but Charlie had refuted the offer. She didn’t want anyone in her house that didn’t belong, reminding her of all the things that she’d neglected since Sam had died.

It wasn’t a deep clean by any means, but at least the sink was devoid of stains and there wasn’t a film on the unused appliances. She wiped her forehead and put her hands on her hips, looking over her work with some semblance of approval. She could do this. Charlie’s head turned as Luke traipsed down the stairs, ignoring the way she wanted to approach him immediately.

I like it when you wear my things.. What the fuck? Her mouth went dry as he collected his belongings, trying not to gawk. It makes me— Tried not to think of the way he’d grabbed at the shirt not but a few minutes earlier.

”Massively down bad.”

“Huh?” Charlie’s brows scrunched in confusion at Milly’s words, watching the blonde sip her coffee. It wasn’t often that she visited, but when she did, Charlie tried to make the most of it. Sam had all but shooed her from the house when they’d mentioned going to Bozeman for the weekend.

“You.”

“Okay, should I not be? I’m married to him.”

“That’s not who you just got a text from, so let’s stop pretending.” Milly’s hands clasped under her chin, continuing to survey Charlie. “You have to stop.”

“We aren’t doing anything,” the brunette replied, taking a drink as if that would stop this line of conversation. “We’ve never done anything.”

Milly rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t mean you haven’t wanted to. I’ve seen the way you look at him.”

“He’s my brother-in-law, and he literally gets shot at every time he leaves Montana. Forgive me for caring, even though I thought it was only natural.”

“Ain’t nothing natural about how y’all act, and you know it.” Milly’s accent was a bit thicker than Charlie’s, having grown up about two hours away from Nashville. “Sam’s a fucking saint, ‘cause if I had a woman looking at my man like that, I’d fucking kill her.”

“I didn’t think you were being an asshole,” Charlie said with a shrug before a quick smile flashed across her face. “This time, anyway.” Her head tilted slightly as she moved back towards the front door, locking it when they were outside. She hadn’t chosen the shirts completely on purpose, but she was too embarrassed that most of her other shirts littered the floor of the laundry room and desperately needed to be washed. She started towards his truck. “If it bothers you, I won’t do it anymore. It just never had, so I didn’t think about it.”

Luke blinked, slightly caught off-guard by her unaffected response to his internal shirt war. Charlie insisting that he wasn’t an asshole was like finding a $100 on the ground. Sheer luck. It also confirmed that he was making a big deal out of something that was completely normal and didn’t need to be a thing. They had enough bullshit already – he didn’t need to go around and make up his own on top of it all.

“It doesn’t bother me,” he announced loudly at Charlie’s back as he followed her outside. This time, anyway. He put on his sunglasses and stuck another toothpick in his mouth. It was a vain attempt to cut back on smoking. He still went through half a pack a day, but it was better than the two packs he sucked down whenever he was deployed.

As soon as he got in the truck and turned it on, his phone connected to Bluetooth and started playing Patsy Cline, which he’d been listening to during yesterday’s bus ride in. Luke jabbed at the console and changed it to satellite radio, a sports talk station, so it was something to both listen to and ignore at the same time. He stuck an elbow out he window while he drove, making mental notes to fill in some spots of the small dirt road that led to the farmhouse before winter hit and it was all shot to hell. At every opportunity, he wiped dust off all surfaces he could reach. Sam usually took his truck out a few times while Luke was gone, but he clearly hadn’t been able to do that in the last month and a half.

Luke talked about dumb shit until the fields gave way to residences, and finally the town center itself. The stop sign still has buckshot in it, huh? That house hasn’t sold yet? Are you hungry? Should we stop for sandwiches?

Hingham Valley proper was an elementary-junior-high combo, the feed store, a small supermarket, the church, the library – small town stuff. Because it was one of the last stops before things got truly scarce closer to the Centennial Mountains, there was also some tourist shit, like coffee shops and an outdoor gear exchange. Most residents didn’t need things like a mechanic because they just found someone they knew to help with the work.

They did, however, need a police station. It was smaller, but most of it worked closely with the livestock commission. People there didn’t care much about speeding, and the only crimes that really existed had to do with drunken fights and cattle.

Luke’s truck rolled into the lot, and he’d barely parked before Mack Jennings, one of the commissioners, came out the front door with his police vest and Oakleys on. He waved at them, his other hand stuck in the armpit of his vest. His homebase was in Helena, but boy did he love coming around to all the farms and ranches to check on cattle numbers. “Good morning!” Mack called out. “Hot out here, ain’t it?”

Luke just kind of squinted at him and didn’t wave back. Now, perhaps, he was being an asshole.

Another officer came out of the building, followed by Anna, who was carrying a clear plastic bag, containing what Luke assumed were the things from his pockets a year ago.

Anna Bowers was shorter, with dark blond hair and a big smile. Her often sunny demeanor deluded strangers into thinking she was a pushover, but as far as Luke was concerned, she was as hard-nosed as they came. She’d worked like hell to be chief.

“Saw you in the drive,” she said, coming right up to the driver’s side and putting her elbows in the window. “Thought I’d save you from coming inside.” The bag was clutched in her hand, but she didn’t give it to him yet. “Hi, Charlie. Good to see you – ”

They were interrupted by Mack coming around to the other side of the Ram and leaning against the passenger’s side door. He started talking to Charlie, and Luke muttered something that sounded an awful lot like “Jesus fucking Christ” before he asked Anna to move so he could open the door. Get me out of this truck.

“You have a second?” he asked her. “I want to talk to you.”

Anna was all grins and an aggravating amount of what Luke suspected was gleeful as she followed him far enough away from the truck that he could no longer hear Mack’s voice.

“It’s nice to see you too,” she laughed. “Here’s your stuff. Nothing much, but it is technically yours, so I have to return it.” It was spare change, a punch card to the feed store, and half-empty pack of chewing gum.

Luke stared at her, but he couldn’t read her expression behind her aviators. “And what else?” he pressed.

“Nothing else.”

“Anna, for fuck’s sake – ”

“Listen, I know you don’t want people to hang on you about Sam, so I figured I’d never actually see you unless I created a reason.” She wasn’t wrong. He was dreading having the whole town apologize to him, especially because Sam was the golden boy and his death was sudden and tragic. He didn’t want to be treated like a sad, lonely leper because his entire family was dead now. “I told you I was sorry when you were in Germany,” she reminded him, “and I’m going to leave it at that. Okay? But I’m here, Luke. If you need anything. Ever.”

He fought the urge to light up a cigarette. “I know. And I appreciate it, I do – I just…” His gaze wandered back to the truck, and Anna caught it.

“How’s she holding up?”

Luke shook his head and didn’t answer because he didn’t really know how to. He doubted Charlie ate or slept. She seemed like she was on autopilot most of the time, but he got her out of the house, which he considered to be a big step. From even fifteen feet away, he saw Mack’s gun touch the side of the truck when he talked to Charlie, and a tendon in his neck threatened to come out of his skin. “If that fucker scratches my paint, I’m going to kill him.”

Anna put his hand on his chest. “Relax. She’s pretty, doesn’t have kids, and everyone knows she just got two hundred acres and is sitting on a gold mine. Mack just has a little less grace than other people. Luke. Look at me.” He did. “I know that you two are basically like this living HBO drama, but this town cares about you both. A lot. Nobody is out to take anything away from you.” There was also an implicit “anyone” in there somewhere, but Luke chose to ignore it.

“What does that mean? HBO drama – ” He cursed when he saw Mack put a hand on top of the passenger's door mirror, and he shouted across the lot. “Enough! Jesus fuck! Are you an idiot?" Luke approached the tailgate and pointed at Mack when he got closer. "Five feet from the truck. Back up."

“Be nice,” Charlie said with a scoff, her hand lifting to swat gently at Luke’s arm. Mack was about as harmless as they came.

“Hi, Anna.” Her lips pressed into a tight smile as she saw the cop approach the truck, tensing up slightly. The last time Charlie had seen Anna, she was trying to pull her away from Sam’s body. Or maybe it was the funeral. Despite not having occurred long ago, it seemed like a fog that she couldn’t remember clearly. Charlie thought she was at the funeral, though she supposed everyone had been. The whole town had turned up at one point or another… Sam had told her once that knowing everyone was a perk in the Valley, but she hadn’t really seen it that way. Particularly when everyone knew her business and was nosey as fuck.

“How’re you holding up?” Mack was a bit older than her, likely in his late 30’s, and had made very pointed visits to their farm every quarter. He and Sam had talked frequently, often sitting around the table talking about possible hydroponics and how many head of cattle they could sustain if he did x, y, and z.

“I’m alright, Mack.” She wasn’t sure that the concealer under her eyes did the job of hiding that she was, in fact, not doing alright.

“Listen, I’m sorry about Sam. He was a great guy, great farmer.” Another forced expression found its way onto Charlie’s face. “You plan on staying? I’ve got plenty of people that would be interested, if that’s what you want to do.”

“I think Luke is going to stay awhile, try to figure out if it’s doable to keep it running with the two of us.” She didn’t delve into her concerns about Luke’s stamina, or his ability to function in the full capacity he needed to for some of the work required on the farm. Her eyes flickered to Luke and Anna, watching the tension that never left his shoulders and her ever present smile. Then the touch to his chest.

She didn’t have the right to feel jealous. She’d told him that he needed to go out, date… hell, she’d even told him to ask Anna out on a date. “No problem, just wanted to offer it to you. I know it can’t be easy, going through what you have, and I can make it a little easier if you want to part with it.” Mack readjusted his stance, the clink of his gun touching against the truck’s panel.

“And if you need anything, you just let us know. Anyone. I’m sure I have a card here somewhere…” The man moved again, rooting around in one of his vest pockets for a card. “Not sure Sam kept any of these around, but here you go.” He put a hand on the door mirror, another reaching out with the card. “You just —“

Luke’s voice could have been heard across the whole valley. In a moment, Charlie put her knees in the seat and hung out the window, glaring at him. “He’s not doing anything, Luke. Chill the fuck out.” Her voice lowered and she relaxed a little bit, looking back at Mack with a roll of her eyes. “Acting like the fucking truck has feelings or something, goddamn.”

A smile landed on Mack’s bearded face, blue eyes brightening as he looked up at her. “He seems like quite the handful, as per usual.” If he didn’t take a few steps back from the truck on his own, Luke would make sure he managed to stop ‘assaulting’ the vehicle in one way or another. “Listen, Char, if you ever need a break, get out of the house for lunch or something, you’ve got my number.”

“Thanks.” I guess. His eyes lingered for only a moment before he stuck his arm back into his vest. He motioned again to the card, which Charlie took, before he held up his hands as if in surrender to the approaching vet. “You good, man?”

When Luke was seventeen, he got arrested for vandalizing Henry O’Rourke’s Jeep Comanche with a baseball bat. They were at a party in the O’Rourke cornfield and everyone had their trucks parked around the bonfire. Beers, kids, shitty music. He remembered that Anna was drunk and kept trying to put her hands under his shirt. Everything went south when Henry made a comment about Luke’s Chevy.

Where’d you get that? You steal it?

Mind your fucking business, Luke said, tossing an empty beer can into the fire.

Answer my question.

Get away from me, Hank. You’re drunk. In truth, his dad had felt bad for him after their mom died, so he bought Luke a truck. Sam was almost sixteen, so he’d gotten a shotgun instead. ‘My mom died so I have this truck now,’ seemed stupid coming out of his mouth, so he said nothing.

We all know you don’t have the money, Henry said with a smirk, and someone like you would rather steal it than get it the hard way.

Whether Luke chose not to remember or he’d been so angry that he truly didn’t know what he was doing, he got his baseball bat from his front seat one second – and the next he was on top of Henry’s truck, smashing out the windows and denting the hood, the cab, everything. He could still hear Anna’s screaming. Luke, stop! Fucking stop it! What is wrong with you? Just stop!

The judge gave him a hundred hours of community service, courtesy of his lawyer, who made a case that Luke’s mother had just died and he was seeing an anger management specialist. In turn, his father gave the Chevy to Sam and told Luke that he could work on the farm to pay off the legal fees. I shouldn’t, his father had said, because you belong in prison, but you wouldn’t last a second there anyways.

---

He seems like quite the handful, as per usual.

Luke knew that if he clenched his jaw any harder, his teeth would break. How strange it was that his pulse was baseline when he invaded terrorist camps, but now that someone put his hand on his truck, his blood pressure could raise the dead. But it wasn’t about the truck, and he knew that. Just like it wasn’t about the truck when he was seventeen.

“Thank you for your input, Charlie,” he bit out. If anyone thought that she was going to sit there with her mouth shut, then she was not the woman that he’d fallen in love with. What the fuck was he giving her anyway? A business card? For what? They had two fucking cows.

He felt Anna’s hand at his wrist, and he stiffened. God he would pay money to shake off the past. To forget the sound of her voice when she begged him to stop swinging the baseball bat. “Luke,” she warned. “Don’t.”

Luke ran his tongue around the inside of his teeth and looked at Mack. “I thought I saw something else,” he finally lied. “I didn’t mean to round on you like that. Wasn’t in my right mind.”

The other man thumped him on the shoulder. “It’s okay. You’ve been through a lot. No hard feelings, okay?” Mack tipped two fingers at them and gave Charlie a small smile that could only be an apology, and he went back inside the precinct. Somehow, this was worse than Anna arresting him in the parking lot for beating the shit out of another officer. It was way, way worse for someone to treat you with pity, like you we something to feel sorry for. He’d rather set the entire town on fire.

Anna gripped his elbow and sighed. “Listen. Being out and around other people would probably be good for you both.” So Luke didn’t act like a rabid dog when someone touched a fucking mirror. “I’m dating this new guy, and he has a pig roast the first Saturday of every month. Fire, music, kegs, food. You know,” she said, eyes moving from Luke to Charlie and back again, “…normal people stuff. When you want to. Open invitation.” She let out a deep breath and then put her hands up. “I’m just saying. Now, I’ll see you all later. And hopefully not because a law is broken, I’m begging you.”

Even after Anna left, Luke took a moment to get back in the truck. He closed the door and put an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

“What do you do when people treat you like that?” he asked Charlie. “Like they feel bad for you?”

Normal people stuff.

It seemed like it had been another life, the last time she’d gone to any social event. She and Sam opted to have a beer or two at the house, not to go to the bar and talk to people. They had everything they needed at home; coupled with Luke’s visits and with her frequent contact with Milly, it had been enough to keep her grounded. Now Charlie had none of that, and thinking about socializing at a fucking pig roast sounded like corporal punishment. She couldn’t say that to Anna, though, and instead shot her a small smile.

Guess asking her to dinner hadn’t panned out.

She sat in the truck, readjusting herself and waiting for Luke to cool off, or whatever the fuck he was doing. She’d seen intermittent outbursts over the few years she’d known him, but she wasn’t sure that she’d ever seen him go from 0 to 60 so quickly. She propped an elbow on the window, letting her head rest there until she felt Luke get into the driver’s seat.

“Don’t go into town,” Charlie replied simply, looking down at the business card Mack had given her. “Not much to do. I’m sure it’ll fade eventually.” She didn’t really know why he was asking her, like he hadn’t had to deal with it for decades of his life. “Then again, I think the more you act normal, the less bad they feel for you.” Acting normal had been hard, but maybe if she had someone pushing her to go to town or willing to cart her around, she could fake it a little better.

“I’m not going to ask what that was out there,” she said quietly, flipping the card over with her spare hand. “But you can talk to me, Luke. I can’t understand all of it, but I can understand some of it.” She released the card and tentatively reached out to grab his hand with hers. “It’ll get better. It has to.”

---

The first Saturday of the month was, in fact, three weeks away. She’d spent the time trying to get into a normal routine with Luke, and each day it became a little easier to not mistakenly say Sam’s name when she made coffee or called him in for dinner.

Charlie had gained a bit of life back, eating one full meal a day and attending to her chores more routinely. There were times where she barely saw Luke, apart from at dawn and dusk, and other times where she would go with him into town if not only to escape being in the house alone.

It seemed like it had taken a fortnight for the laundry to clear up, but she managed. When she ran into a separated sock from Sam, she’d just excuse herself for the rest of the day and lay in bed. She could see the concern in Luke’s eyes at times and chose to ignore it, though it seemed that experience went both ways. Each time she saw him lifting or moving something, she watched for the telltale signs that he had done too much. She’d ordered some Epsom salt from Amazon and made sure to put it somewhere he could see it.

The last thing she wanted was to offer help when he clearly didn’t want it.

When the night of the pig roast came, Charlie decided to get ready before she started having second thoughts. So she took a long shower, complete with shaving and exfoliating, followed by actually blow drying her hair straight. She hadn’t had anything flashy in her closet for years; not much reason to have impractical dresses or heels in Hingham Valley, so she did the best she could with a forest green and white flannel thrown over a tank top, coupled with a pair of cut off shorts and brown, knee high boots she hadn’t worn since she’d left Nashville.

She put on make-up; not much, but concealer, a layer of tint to level out her complexion, and mascara. They clunked down the stairs so loudly she swore they rang through the house. “Luke!” He wasn’t in the living room, but they never were. “I want to go out. Come with me to Anna’s party.”

There wouldn’t bet be any ifs, ands, or buts about it. Whatever grumbling or cussing Luke were to send her way wouldn’t be enough to dissuade her. For the first time in nearly three months, she felt… okay. While he got ready, she grabbed a beer from the fridge and drank one quickly, then nursed on the next. However, the more she drank, the more she just wanted to stay home.

So she let Jake out for the last time before they left then quickly rounded him up and moved to Luke’s truck, letting herself into the passenger seat.

The sun was starting to set by the time they made it to the roast. She could hear the music from inside the truck, blasting a country song that Charlie couldn’t place but seemed familiar. People milled around and it seemed like everyone in town that was under 45 had showed up. “Maybe this was a mistake,” she said, her fingers gingerly wrapped the bottle neck of a now empty beer.

She could see Mack, who had come to see who the new arrival was and then waved. He made sure not to approach the truck this time.

After three weeks in a farmhouse with Charlotte McCormick, Luke had fallen into a routine. He taught himself how to sleep in the guest room at night, which consisted of a box fan, waking up at 2am, smoking a cigarette, and softly cursing for another hour while he worked the muscles of his chest with his thumb, willing them to relax. At around 5:00, he woke and had coffee with Charlie while they made breakfast. He’d taken to two eggs, bacon and cheese in a tortilla. They made several of them, and he kept them in the Igloo cooler during the morning farm chores. He would then shower, break for lunch, and do odd jobs around the property. He fixed the light in the barn, filled in the potholes in the driveway, and built a second chicken coop. If they weren’t careful, they’d turn into a hen farm – Luke had a way with chickens somehow, even though he hated them. At night, he ran Jake until he was tired while Charlie made dinner. It took long enough, but after two weeks he stopped watching what she ate like a hawk when he caught her downstairs in the middle of the night once, eating a biscuit in his t-shirt.

That’s not to say there weren’t bad days. One morning, he woke up and she didn’t. He let her be and mucked stalls all day in the rain, figuring that the last thing she needed in the morning was to deal with horse shit.

Once a week, he saw a physical therapist in Bozeman for his injury, courtesy of the VA. The top of her head barely came to his armpit, but she had hands like a Russian gymnast and no tolerance for Luke’s flimsy excuses about why he wasn’t tending to his daily morning exercises. She was at least sixty, half Native, and had no filter. She told him not to shoot himself in the chest anymore with the pain injections – in fact, she told him to throw them out and stop smoking cigarettes. Further, she suggested he take up swimming and start yoga. At this, he deadpan stared at her and insisted that there was nowhere to swim in Hingham Valley. Sex will also do, she said, digging her thumb into his pectoral in such a way that tears came to his eyes. It sends endorphins to the brain and muscles. No hitting or crazy stuff. Don’t let her punch you. The truth was, Luke liked being hit, and the best he could do was jerk off in the shower every few days. This always required turning his brain off, because if he turned it on, the things he wanted to see and feel would’ve sent him to hell.

He got beers once with Anna, and it was immediately evident that her new hobby was trying to find someone for him to date.

You can’t just not try at all, she insisted. Besides your honestly weird roommate situation, your only problem is your attitude.

Luke sighed and put his head in his hands. I’m not doing this tonight, Anna. Please.

I’m your friend, and I’m not watching this torture bullshit anymore. It’s depressing. She didn’t let him get a word in before she pressed on. You’re coming to our party on Saturday, and you’re going to talk to people who aren’t Charlie. Her fucking husband died in a horrible way, and it’s going to take her years to get over that. She’s not going to use you for sex because she cares about you – she’s going to use someone else, someone she can walk away from, someone that can take collateral damage. And you need to let her.

---

Maybe this was a mistake.

Luke spent most of the drive to the barbeque trying not to look at the frayed hemline of Charlie’s shorts so he wouldn’t get in a car accident, but if he was being honest with himself, he was proud of her for just going out and doing something. While their last few weeks had gone without any major incidents, it was mostly, well…boring. Which for them, was very welcome.

“Anna being right all the time pisses me off sometimes,” he said, “but a barbeque is low stakes and easy. You know mostly everyone. There’s food and beer.” Luke took the empty bottle from her hand and put in the cup holder between them. He leaned on the console and looked at her, hard. “We can go any time. Just find me. Text me. There’s no harm in trying.”

He'd been taking less pain meds as his injury healed, and while it was significantly better, it wasn’t a hundred percent. He could have a few beers but nothing crazy. Again, he stressed to Charlie that they could leave any time – in five minutes, even.

He tapped the side of her bare knee with his knuckles and said with a small grin, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Several terrible scenarios, all of them ending with Charlie yelling at him in the truck, tumbled through his head. But he remembered what Anna had told him last week. You need to let her. He was going to be on his best behavior. For both of their sakes.

Even though it took more grace than he was willing to extend, Luke was perfectly nice to Mack, who was the first to greet them – or Charlie, as it were. It’s nice to see you guys, there’s plenty of food, the drinking has only gotten started, I hope you all like whiskey, etc., etc. Luke dodged two kids running around with sparklers while he shook hands and tipped his hat to at least half of Hingham Valley. Several guys unloaded large truckloads of scrap wood up by the top of the field, for what he had a feeling was going to be a bonfire bigger than the house.

An arm locked around his elbow and pulled him to the side. “There you are! Finally,” Anna said. “I saw Charlie but not you yet. I thought I was going to have to send a car up that goddamn hill of yours for a wellness check.”

Ten years ago, a lobotomy was the only way anyone would be able to get Luke to sit at a table with a bunch of cops, laughing and drinking beer. Everyone wore flannels or t-shirts, and if he squinted real hard, he could pretend they were all normal people.

It was about an hour, just as it was getting dark, before Luke broke down and texted Charlie.

Luke [20:41]: Are you still here?

He had another beer and ate a pulled pork sandwich. Only a small amount got on his white t-shirt, and rubbing at it with a napkin only made it worse. He picked up his phone again.

Luke [21:18]: Just let me know.

Anna gave him a look, but he ignored her and went to the beer tent to get a water or something for the stain on his shirt. He rummaged through the coolers, finding nothing but booze, and he swore – but he sure straightened the fuck up when he heard a woman’s voice behind him, even over the music and hollering.

“There’s only beer in there, honey.”

“Apparently,” he muttered, eyeing the stranger. She was suspiciously pretty. Long legs, dark blonde hair, sundress, cowboy boots. Also, he didn’t recognize her, which he didn’t like.

Her hands were soft and she smelled like suntan lotion when she touched his arm, turning him towards her. “You need club soda.” She was too close and she knew it. Luke grit his teeth. “You’re gonna have to tough it out until you find some. I’m Sutton, by the way.”

“Luke.”

“Nice to meet you, Luke. Listen, once you have a few more beers and loosen up a bit, why don’t you come find me and ask me to dance? Won’t hurt you none.” She tapped his fingers to his chest and left, beer in hand.

Back at the table, Luke immediately found Anna and asked her if he knew someone named Sutton. “I didn’t recognize her,” he explained, “and she was very…direct. Like she knew something I didn’t.”

“Jesus Christ, Sutton is here?”

“Who is that?”

“Sutton Ambrose, Luke. Wilson’s fucking daughter. Private tutors and horseback riding lessons. That kind of girl. Her daddy sent her to law school in New York, and looks like she’s back now.”

“How much do you want to bet it was property law?” Luke asked, watching her move through the crowd like she owned the place.

“Every dollar I have. And double-or-nothing on Sutton already having done a hell of a background check on your farm. She knows exactly who you are.”

Are you still here?

She looked down at her phone and narrowed her eyes as she tried to focus on the text, her vision slightly blurred from more than a few beers. Where the fuck else would she be? “He doesn’t really leave you alone, huh?”

A laugh bubbled out of Charlie as she sat at a table with Eliza, Micah, Sloane, and Noah. Noah’s arm had, at some point, drifted around her shoulders and pulled her closer. She’d allowed it, because she was shitfaced. She forgot how quickly alcohol could hinder her without any food on her stomach. A plate of barbecue sat on the table, barely picked at and now cold. Her head was swimming and she was well past tipsy, a warmth throughout her body that she hadn’t felt since she was in Nashville.

“He’s just worried about me,” she said, looking up at Noah. He was an attractive man, tall and broad-shouldered with sandy hair and coffee brown eyes. Unfortunately he knew it, so much so that she could sense it in her drunken state.

The group was a mix of friends that were her age, give or take a few years. She’d seen some of them around, particularly when she and Sam had went into town. They’d even gone to lunch with Micah and Sloane a handful of times, so when Charlie had seen them, she immediately gravitated towards them. Luke had seemed dead set on sending her out on her own, which had pissed her off enough to drink beer like it was water.

“You know, you could get other people to worry about you,” Sloane said, pulling her dark red hair from her face. “I didn’t know how to reach out after everything.”

Charlie wasn’t close enough with any of them to reach out and vice versa. She didn’t fault them for it, but she could see the sincerity in not only Sloane’s eyes, but all of them. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s hard, when you’re treated like a leper.” The words didn’t come with sadness, only with a matter-of-fact tone that she could thank alcohol for.

“Well, I think that’s over now,” Noah said with a grin, squeezing her shoulders. “You’re here now.” They all clinked their bottles together and easy conversation continued, full of laughter and no tears. While her conversation was easier with Luke, for the first time in three months, returning to some semblance of normal brought her happiness. It wasn’t that the month with Luke had been terrible, but sometimes it had just felt like he was replacing Sam.

She’d caught herself watching him more, found herself late at night with her hand between her thighs thinking of how she’d wanted him then overcome with crushing guilt that she’d chosen the older brother to get off to and not the younger.

Just let me know.

It had been an equally long time since she’d had enough alcohol to consider drunk texting someone. That someone had been Sam for a while, but that had been six or seven years ago. Now… “Goddamn,” she heard Noah mutter from beside her. “I guess the rumors are true that he’s into you.”

Fucking rumors. “Noah,” she heard Micah chide, almost a warning.

“What? It’s not like it wasn’t his fucking brother.”

Doesn’t change the fact that I’m not going to cross that line. “There’s nothing there,” Charlie said with a shrug. “We’re just close. He’d always come here and stay with us. We got close.”

“Just because you’re trying to get with her doesn’t mean everyone else is,” Eliza said bluntly. Is that what this was? Over the past half hour, his arm had moved to her waist and a few fingers in the belt loop of her shorts. She was almost too drunk to care “If we’re airing dirty laundry, we might as well address how a third of the town was interested in Sam, a third Luke, and the other third that wasn’t wanted —”

Charlie waved the rest of the thought away, not wanting to hear it. She knew that Sam and Luke had been desirable for as long as they’d lived here. The boys had grown up on one of the biggest pieces of land within 50 miles; Sam had been a fortunate looking man, with a build trimmer than Noah’s and the personality best described as a social butterfly, and Luke… The conversation, however, was the last straw of her resolve to not text.

Charlie [21:37]: I’m fine. Here still.

“People were loyal to Sam, and they respected him. Anyone that was interested before you came, and even after, would have never done that to either one of you.”

“Yeah, if you don’t count Sutton,” Noah said darkly. Charlies brow’s furrowed, having heard only whispers of that name before.

Charlie [21.39]: I’m drunk.

Charlie [21.40]: Are you ready?

“Where are you going?” She had realized she’d stood from the table until she wobbled slightly and felt Noah’s hand steady her.

“I want to go home, I think. It was great to see y’all. Maybe we can — “ A hiccup interrupted her and she laughed. “We can get together.”

“I’ll text you,” Sloane promised.

So, with Noah at her side and his hand again fasted into her shorts, she sat off to find Luke.